World Immunisation Week: Drive kicks off today

Measles campaign will soon be launched to vaccinate 62m children: health minister.

ISLAMABAD:

As part of a routine immunisation campaign, the government on Wednesday launched World Immunisation Week to redouble its efforts and reach out to every unimmunised child in the country.

A ceremony for the week — April 24 to April 30 — was held at the Ministry of National Health Services, Regulation and Coordination (NHSRC) and was attended by provincial health ministers, representatives of national and international partner agencies and other officials.

State Minister for NHRC Saira Afzal Tarar said that Pakistan’s immunisation indicators were disappointing, despite significant efforts by the government and its partners.

She said the startling facts revealed by Pakistan Demographic Health Survey (PDHS) 2012-13 on routine immunisation coverage in the country were eye-openers, according to her, the federal government lacked accurate data on it.



Sharing the findings, the minister said overall routine immunisation coverage was 54 per cent, with 66 per cent in Punjab, 53 per cent in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa (KP), 29 per cent in Sindh and only 16 per cent in Balochistan.

“Due to this low coverage, every year 50,000 children die of pneumonia — a vaccine-preventable disease. Furthermore, over the past three years, there has been an alarming increase in measles cases, with 14,000 reported across the county,” she said.

Balochistan Health Minister Rehmat Saleh Baloch said that due to low coverage, every year, out of 1,000 newborn children, 11 die of vaccine-preventable diseases before reaching the age of five.

He said that around 39 per cent of union councils in his province do not have EPI centres, while in the rest of the area, they were set up at a distance of 735 kilometres, making it impossible for parents to travel and access them.

Baloch said there was an acute shortage of vaccinators in the province and currently they needed at least 600 to make the task a success.

He also said that the funds given to the health department under the National Finance Commission (NFC) award were insufficient to meet the province’s needs.

He expressed his displeasure over engagement of provincial EPI programme managers, who, according to him, spent most of their time in Islamabad attending “useless” meetings instead of the cost of the important campaigns.

He said that a “Sehatmand Balochistan” campaign will be launched in the province to strengthen routine coverage of immunisation and polio campaigns.

Sindh Special Secretary Health Dr Suresh Kumar said that due to low immunisation coverage, the province witnessed outbreaks of measles and polio in the recent past.

He said that a total of 75 measles cases were reported in the province this year with seven deaths and last year a total of 3,298 cases were reported.

“We are making efforts to fill the huge gap in routine coverage and will try our best to make the province polio-free by next year,” he claimed.

Meanwhile, Tarar said that the federal government was set to introduce a new immunisation campaign “Tandrust Pakistan” across the country. Under the drive, a nationwide measles campaign will be launched to vaccinate over 62 million children, while 3.33 million children will be given polio drops during the campaign, she said.

Tarar said that under the Tandrust Pakistan drive, all efforts will be made to strengthen the Expanded Programme on Immunisation and polio eradication programme will be integrated in it.

All the participants stressed the need for parents and the media to play active roles during the immunisation week in creating awareness and getting children vaccinated against nine vaccine-preventable diseases.

Published in The Express Tribune, April 24^th, 2014.